Sacred Stone

A search on the Internet, a second mortgage on his home, and the three weeks’ vacation he had accumulated finally made the dream a reality. Shea had decided to tour Scotland and England for a couple of weeks, until he would need to drop the car off at the port in Liverpool to be shipped home. Even with the top up the rain was seeping in through the open side doors. Shea picked up his cowboy hat off the passenger side of the bench seat and flicked the rain off. Then he stared at the engine gauges and motored on. He passed a van by the side of the road and then the road was clear again.

It was quiet and peaceful, and the air smelled of wet peat and rain-slick roads.

“I HAVE THE fighters on radar,” the pilot of the Challenger said to Hanley over the satellite telephone.

“How far away are you from the Cessna?” Hanley asked.

“Not far,” the pilot said. “We’re lining up to make a pass over the eastern shore from south to north right now. We’re going to buzz him as close as we can.”

BENNETT WAS CLOSE to the drop point. He reached over, unlatched the door, and started to tilt the Cessna on her axis. Out of the corner of his eye Bennett caught sight of an old car driving along the road. Then he concentrated on making the drop as close to the van as possible.

Just then the corporate jet appeared in his windshield.

“THERE’S A VAN down on the road on the eastern shore,” the pilot of the Challenger said to Hanley as he screamed past Bennett at a low altitude.

“What does—” Hanley started to say before being cut off.

“There’s the Robinson,” the pilot shouted.

“Can he see the van?” Hanley asked.

“Probably,” the pilot said, pulling out of the pass and climbing, “but he’s still a distance away.”

“Get out of there,” Hanley ordered. “We just received word from the British authorities that their fighters are only a few minutes away. They can handle things now.”

“Acknowledged,” the pilot of the Challenger said.

ON THE GROUND near the van, the two men watched as the Cessna came closer.

“I think I see a helicopter farther back,” one of the men said.

The other man stared into the mist. “I doubt it,” he said. “If it was that close, we could hear the engine and the rotor slap.”

They could see the door of the Cessna open.

THE TWO MEN could have heard the engine of the helicopter—if the engine had been running. Instead, the cockpit of the Robinson had grown eerily quiet, with only the sound of the air slipping past the fuselage as Adams initiated an autorotation. He angled toward land and prayed they would not fall short.

Cabrillo just caught a glimpse of the van and the flashing strobes as they dropped.

He didn’t bother to tell Adams over the headset—he had his hands full right now.

BENNETT PUSHED ON the box and it flipped out of the open door. Then he righted the Cessna and turned to head for the airport in Inverness. He was climbing into the air to clear the hills at the far end of the lake when he caught a quick glimpse of the helicopter only five hundred feet off the ground.

As soon as he could get the Cessna stabilized and on course he’d call and report.

A ROCK IN a box falls straight to earth. The meteorite plummeted down and slammed into a spot of soggy peat without breaking. The two men raced over and were just starting to pull the box from the mud when the high-pitched whine from the engines of a pair of fighter jets grew louder. Raising their heads, they stared up as the jets streaked past.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” the first man said as soon as he yanked the box from the peaty soil.

The second man raced ahead to start the van while the first followed with the box.

“I THINK I can make the road,” Adams shouted over the headset.

The Robinson was in a depleting arc powered only by the air flowing up through the rotor blades and causing them to spin. Adams was controlling the helicopter to the ground—but he was losing air speed fast.

The edge of the loch and the road were fast approaching, and he started his flare.

THE FIGHTERS CAME up behind Bennett and the Cessna so fast it was as if they had appeared out of thin air. They crossed within feet to either side, then blew past him and initiated high-speed turns. Just then his radio squawked.

“This is the Royal Air Force,” a voice said, “you are to make your way to the nearest airfield and land immediately. If you refuse to comply or take evasive action, you will be downed. Acknowledge receipt of this message.”

The two jets had completed their turns and were approaching Bennett head-on.

He waved his wings in reply—then he reached for the satellite telephone.

SO CLOSE AND yet so far.

Cabrillo glanced out the side window before the helicopter dropped behind a hill. The van and the drop zone were less than a mile away. Even if Adams could get them to the ground alive, by the time they climbed from the Robinson and jogged to the site, the van—and the meteorite—would be gone.

He clutched his satellite telephone to his chest and braced to hit the ground.